‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’: Hulu Hopeful Another Creative Team Could Resurrect Nixed Revival Series, Chloé Zhao Called A “Mismatch” [Report]

Over the weekend, we learned the shocking news that Hulu and Disney Television Group wouldn’t be moving forward with a series order for the gestating revival of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” series with Sarah Michelle Gellar returning to the iconic role after the pilot, helmed by Chloé Zhao, wasn’t able to convince the folks behind those kinds of major decesions. Gellar would go on to say that an unnamed executive was a non-fan and would continually talk up their skepticism and dislike of the original series (we had put two-and-two together that Gellar was speaking about Disney Television Group’s Craig Erwich, which is now confirmed).

In a new report from Variety, they detail the main beats of the pilot for “Buffy The Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale” that would introduce audiences to a new teenage slayer named Nova (played by newcomer Ryan Kiera Armstrong), with Gellar only briefly showing up toward the end of an earlier version of the pilot (only for that particpation to beefed-up in rewrites), and they go on to say Hulu that didn’t see the value in spending on a full season based on the pilot alone while also seemingly throwing everyone other than Gellar under the bus (including Armstrong).

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“Given the high bar set by fans for such a revered franchise, executives at Hulu felt that it wasn’t worth throwing good money after bad, and pulled the plug.”

Some of the issues outlined in the piece were that while writers/showrunners Nora Zuckerman and Lilla Zuckerman attempted to rewrite their script to tailor it to the executive notes and wants for the pilot, it just wasn’t up to snuff, and they weren’t able to age it up, calling it “unsalvageable.”

Another part of the story has the outlet making the claim that Zhao was a “mismatch” with the material for Hulu’s TV project. As they started questioning her abilities and being able to transition to television from film, after seeing how Zhao handled the pilot. Quite a bold thing to say about the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind critically acclaimed films such as “Nomadland” and “Hamnet,” but it comes off more like an opinion or a narrative that executives could be telling themselves alongside the press (or possibly excuses for showing the creative team the door).

“Zhao’s prodigious skills as a director didn’t lend themselves to a television pilot that requires a lot of exposition. It was undershot, and there wasn’t any coverage, one source said, so there would have had to be reshoots on the pilot anyway. The performances from the actors playing the new characters, who need to make a strong impression as they’re introduced, were under-directed.”

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That all leads up to another bold tidbit in the report: Hulu is said to be open to revisiting “Buffy” with a new creative team (we hope they’re not thinking that creator Joss Whedon is going to make a magical return, given his tarnished reputation) in the future, and it certainly sounds like Hulu wants to move on from Zhao alongside The Zuckerman Sisters. Adding that despite the ability to shop the show to other suitors (we could picture HBO Max and Netflix being VERY interested in a legacy series like “Buffy”), a source is telling the trade that Hulu/Disney isn’t really interested in parting with it.

We don’t really know how genuine that really is (wanting to try again) or if Gellar is going to want to even be involved after being coaxed out of Slayer retirement by Zhao’s involvement (Erwich likely won’t be changing his overall opinions on “Buffy” anytime soon), and this trade piece mentions that Hulu had “no idea what they really wanted” from the TV project (so who knows if these people are even going to like what the next team produces for them).